Gemma Files’ Experimental Film

For Fans of: House of Leaves, Head Full of Ghosts, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, CanCon 

Experimental Film is a 2015 novel by Gemma Files. The story is told from the point of view of Lois Cairns, an ex-Film History teacher and writer. Unemployed and struggling to care for her child with high needs, Lois discovers a lost early filmmaker, whose own obsessions begin to seep into Lois’ world.

I absolutely love how Files doesn’t stray from using the very southern Ontario specific landscape in her writing, which doesn’t feature in a lot of high-quality fiction. Files uses so many real places in Toronto, and in the Muskoka region, both places I’m familiar with. But you don’t need to live in southern Ontario to appreciate the descriptions of place. Files also discusses Canadian Film History, being a creative in Canada, and CanCon—or Canadian Content—which is, more or less, a quota of Canadian materials that TV stations, filmmakers, or other creative outlets have to put out in order to receive grants from the Government of Canada. 

Files uses all of these interesting real-life anecdotes to ground the story in reality, and so the reader is better able to suspend their disbelief when the supernatural elements kick in. 

Files creates an extremely effective ghost story, but even without all of the creepy, supernatural elements, Experimental Film is also an incredibly emotional story. The way Files writes the character of Lois, so raw and open with the reader, the novel would be an exceptional drama if this was the entire story. We feel like we fully understand Lois’ intentions and desires and so even when she does questionable things, we’re rooting for her. Like the best of Horror, the supernatural in Experimental Film only adds to the already enthralling story. 

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Rating: 5 out of 5 flammable film reels

Review by Ian A. Bain

@bainwrites on Twitter

I purchased this book.